Show Notes

00:00:00 INTRO.

00:00:23 WELCOME. Here is the sound of our voices. About John H. Crowe III’s living conditions as Scott’s roommate at Pagan House. Ross’ announcer voice: time to commit? Jonathan Turner needs to step it up.

Miskatonic River Press with A Season in Carcosa, edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., now in ebook (thanks, Ross!) as well as print.

00:13:30 THE DOOM THAT CAME WITH SANDY. Good luck, eastern seaboard! We mourn a storied sailing ship. The Elder Sign works on shoggoths.

00:16:45 VOTE!

00:20:40 PLEASE RATE THE PODCAST AND THE MAGAZINE. It matters a lot.

00:22:10 YOU SHOULD HAVE OATH 21. If you don’t, contact shane@arcdream.com. We love the cover art and if Todd doesn’t then he’s wrong. Also: “Sukakpak,” a cross-platform scenario by Jason Morningstar. Ross has played Cthulhu Dark and the players made it not dark enough. Player vs. player vs. an uncaring, haunted universe. Also, Unaussprechlichen Klutzen, a playset for Fiasco. “Man With a Thousand Faces,” by Richard Becker, which like his past scenario “Dog Will Hunt” got expanded and polished mightily after a ton of playtesting and has gotten huge accolades. A new “Directive From A-Cell” by Scott Glancy, with a related one coming in Oath 22: Alphonse’s Axioms for Agents.

00:45:05 ALSO IN OATH 22.

“Die High,” a modern scenario by Greg Stolze. The value of playtesting except when (or especially when?) Blair Reynolds is involved. Spoilers for “Die High” from 00:51:00 to 00:52:10.

Bumps In the Night. If you are Lawrence Krumsiek, get in touch! Your contact information from Kickstarter was all wrong and Pagan Publishing has a book for you. Now available at Arkham Bazaar. Scott is Skyping games all over the world.

Everybody loves John Scott Tynes’ “Convergence.” Listen to the original digital audio files John prepared as clues in his game. In fact, download here: The Message, before decoding and after decoding — but for maximum impact make the players use software to decode it themselves. (Spoiler alert from 01:37:30 to 01:38:20!)

John’s dream RPG project, his lost college Yellow Sign campaign.

Miscegenation and Lovecraftian horror.

The staying power of Delta Green: verisimilitude, campaign frameworks, tragic heroism, honor and violence, and the worldwide allure of the American Old West.

Rehabilitating Lovecraft’s Dreamlands. (Spoiler alert from 01:51:10 to 01:53:30 for The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.)

Also, “The Hound” and the competitive indie RPG it ought to be.

Recovering horror in your game.

The design of the D20 edition of Call of Cthulhu that Pagan Publishing produced with Monte Cook for Wizards of the Coast: Burn it all and let every Keeper start over.

The mysterious Cowan in in Tynes Cowan Corp.

John’s favorite parts of Delta Green that he didn’t write. How Wackenhut made Shane miss the infamous London encounter at the beginning of Countdown. We love Graeme Price so hard.

Would John be willing to share that Yellow sign outline with me. I promise not spread it around without prior permission. Also, does he recall the name of that article he referenced on agrarians vs. Herdsmen?

Also thank you all for spreading the cat piss and speedloaders lifestyle.

Excellent show, Unspeakables. Great stuff on the D20 book that I overlooked, like so many other thoughtless snobs. Now hunting down a copy so I can put all that great campaign and craft advice in my brains.

I immediately bought myself a copy of Oath 21 — and it’s just chockablock full of awesome sauce. Sukakpak — what a nicely written little piece. It’s like a haiku of a scenario. Must. Run. It.

But now I must respectfully take you to task.

I think you might’ve misrepresented Cthulhu Dark a bit, here. Sorry Ross — author of Zombies of the World and other fantastic game-related materials — but I disagree strongly that CD necessarily devolves into PvP and wrestling over narrative control. Also disagree that the only way for a player to die is for another player to call for their failure.

The rule on failure: “If someone thinks it would be more interesting if you failed, they describe how you might fail and roll a die.”

This distinction of “more interesting” is a really important one, I think. Yup, it’s open to abuse. One could say that “more hilarious” is a kind of interesting. Tom did. Caleb did. But with some judicious guidance, I do think a Keeper can set the tone for how the rule is used. To encourage a certain flavor, one could say “if someone thinks it would be more Lovecraftian” or “horrific” or “bleak” or “dramatic.”

As written, I believe the rules indicate that the Keeper also has the option to roll against a player for the chance to narrate their failure. In this way, the Keeper can make the game every bit as dark and lethal as the best and worst of CoC.

You can also play it like a comic fiasco, as RPPR did in Caleb’s biblical yarn and in Dead Island. That has got to have something to do with the mood at the table. Ross, I challenge you to run a CD game with a darker tone. I think the tools are there for one.

I also think it’s important to remember that at least half of the die results should not just be a success, but success-with-consequences. Results in the lower half of the 1D6 range indicate that a player may do what they intended, but they could face complications or even some pretty ugly outcomes. Successfully jumping out of a window only to break an ankle and alert the fishmen in the alley — this is hardly a heroic result. So I think ASG’s complaint about this game removing the uncertainty of significant die rolls is misguided.

In addition, Graham has proposed an optional rule to add a hit point-like Harm die that might help some players get over the strictly narrative approach to mortality.

Okay, I’m done perseverating. I just wanted to offer a counterpoint. And I think after reading Sukakpak that it would be a hell of a good scenario to try as an — extra dark — Cthulhu Dark.

To all y’all: please keep making cool stuff. And thanks for the great podcast.

Been listening to these podcasts for awhile, got hooked when it was mentioned back on the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast. This episode is just as good as the others. It also got me to buy Call of Cthulhu D20 (In the hopes of maybe luring my players to the dark side and away from safety of D&D. I have already got them partway there with Cthulhu Dark myself).

I cant wait to see Puppet Land resurface so I can fund/buy it.

As I have come to expect from you fine people, another great and informative episode, just please, know you folks are busy and have lives, but please make these more regular?